


Smite Kessel, 12BBY

by GeataRionnag



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 06:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeataRionnag/pseuds/GeataRionnag
Summary: Nearing the end of the Clone Wars, we all know that Separatist headquarters was relocated to Mustafar. But what if it stayed on the pastoral world of Raxus?Soon before Chancellor Palpatine announced himself Emperor, he claimed that the Jedi arose and attempted to kill him. But what if one of the major challengers in the room, Mace Windu, survived the duel? And what if he turned to the dark side?Originally posted on Wattpad.





	1. Lothal

Ezra was alone.

Alone in the field of buildings.

Alone on Lothal.

All because of the Empire, his parents were gone. They had been good people! Why had they suffered? Because they dared to spread their light of hope?

The Empire was evil. He understood that now. But they were still some abstract force, like a pebble that causes ripples. He, his parents, and everyone else in the galaxy were pawns of the Empire, and they were moved by invisible hands.

Personal loss held no meaning for the Empire. To them, pawns were captured, and pawns were killed.

So, too, to Ezra, they were some faceless thing that didn't care about anything save the execution of whatever lofty strategy they had. One that a 7 year old couldn't understand.

Well, maybe they weren't faceless. They had a face, in the fliers and posters that were hung around the galaxy, using stars as thumb tacks to spread their message.

Their face was dark, expressionless. Just like them. It had someone beneath it, but you never saw this person and you never truly understood how he got to be this face. Just like the Empire.

Indeed, just like the history of the birth of the empire, the birth of this dark face was twisted and confused, shrouded in shadow and some mess of strings that no one except whoever was behind the Empire itself could ever understand.

The face, though, was a clear reminder and warning, tangible, always watching. It was a dark sentinel that never slept and kept everyone in line. Or, at least, it tried.

The Empire, too, never stopped watching. As the face was the face of the Empire, so too were the eyes the eyes of the Empire.

Awake. Dark. Sleepless. Cold. Emotionless. Yet it still managed to be menacing, stirring at least a whisper of fear into the bravest of men.

Yet Ezra was not a man yet. He was a child. One who had been shoved ever closer to the precipice that, if fallen off of, would mean the beginning of his life as a man. A brave man, but still one chained by the breaths of fear that the Empire unleashed against their foes and subjects alike.

As if they even had a foe.

Ezra had been alone for several days. His body was shivering, but his heart was hot and bubbling with hate for the Empire and its cruel, cold games.

All he understood was that they were the ones that had brought this. They were still that invisible hand, but he hated them.

Growing up a rebel of sorts, he had learned all sorts of things and had been told about standing up for those who couldn't stand up for themselves. None of the things he had learned could help him in this cold world he had been thrust into. Now he was the one who couldn't stand up for himself.

So he sat. Sat, curled up, on a building, looking hungrily out at the market, shivering despite the midday sun.

He was cold. He was starving. The only place he had left was scarred, just like his heart. It would take time for him to be able to retreat to his old home.

He sighed. He knew what he had to do.

He leapt from the top of the building to a ladder, his small, lithe body still dismounting the building with ease.

He had learned that if he wanted food, speed wasn't the way to get it. He had learned that by watching. Watching other urchins whose failure or success he didn't care about. The only care he had about them was that they were a learning tool.

He hit the ground, sending up a small cloud of dust. The next thing to do was just to walk, quietly, in a leisurely manner.

He walked past a booth holding blasters. He largely ignored one with spices that meant nothing to him. He'd never been much for cooking. Then he came to the booth he had spotted. It held packets of rice and loth-rat meals.

He felt even colder. Something felt not quite right.

Then came the scream. It came from down the street. Ezra siezed the opportunity to slip one of the packets into his hand.

He could see the source of commotion now: a dark man, running.

The man pushed things out of his way, sometimes seeming like he didn't touch them at all. He had an eye patch and his right arm was cybernetic. He wore deflective armor, dark and tough.

He came closer, quickly, running faster than any normal man could. Ezra felt colder than ever now as the man came closer.

Then, he became the next victim of being knocked into. He was just about to slip the food into his bag, and now it fell, Ezra barely managing to catch it with what seemed like sheer luck.

The booth owner, despite the upheaval, saw this. Ezra didn't know the keen booth owners from the stupid ones that were about as intelligent as a nerf.

"Stop! Thief!" the Siniteen cried. Ezra gasped and looked around frantically.

A female Togruta had come around the corner at a run just moments before, just in time to hear the booth keeper's cry.

Luckily for Ezra, the cry seemed to fall on deaf ears.

The Togrutan woman held a blaster in one hand and a silver stick thing in her other hand. The dark man had a blaster as well, but his had a smoking hole in it. He snatched a blaster from the booth that Ezra had passed before.

Ezra winced at a red bolt that shot back at the Togrutan and the cries of the crowd at this more evident theft. Just as he was certain she would be hit, a brilliant white blade burst forth from her silver stick for a millisecond and met the blood-colored shot head on. It ricocheted off the weapon and struck the cusp of the building that he had previously perched upon.

Not all people even noticed the bright saber, but Ezra was among those who did. He knew enough to know that this brilliant sword was a lightsaber, an all-but-legendary weapon of the equally as surreal Jedi.

What boy, no matter how alone and hurt, wouldn't want to follow some legendary warrior with glowing swords? Ezra was not going to ignore such a thing. Not only that, but the position he was in with the Siniteen was not the most advantageous, and... there was something more. Something about these two, locked in the chase and battle, and wherever they were going, seemed to tug on Ezra's young soul, calling him almost.

He shoved the food into his bag and dashed after the Togrutan before the booth-keeper could stop him.


	2. A Chase and a Story and a Ship is There Too

The chase was on. The trio twisted through the streets, the two in front occasionally shooting at each other only to have what would have been a perfect aim put off by some invisible force.

Interesting, Ezra found it, as he considered such a conundrum, the different implications that invisible force and invisible hand held with him. The one being inherently good and the other coldly wicked. The one legendary, the other a cold, hard fact that he had had to deal with less than a week before.

Screams seemed to crop up wherever they ran, or at least some sort of outburst. On occasion it was merely a quiet sort of disbelief that they garnered from the bystanders, only to be crumbled by yet another wave of sound that rebuffed them on every side.

Soon enough, they made it to a ship bay. The Togrutan fished out a small silver object from her pocket while the dark skinned man took out a black one.

The two devices were slapped on two different ships. Ezra saw the first one, the one the Togrutan woman put on, but he was completely unaware of the second.

Unaware, that is, until an explosion came from a small shuttle that had been directly in the path of the dark-skinned man.

The dark man himself climbed into what was apparently his spacecraft, oblivious to the tracker that the Togrutan woman had just slapped on to its underbelly.

She skidded to a halt, putting her arms up to protect herself from the blast, though evidently employing some additional form of protection.

She looked up at the now escaping ship, a grim look of half satisfaction on her face.

From another side of the hangar, a human came out of a Correllian freighter and looked at the smoldering pile of what used to be the Togratan's ship.

The two made eye contact as if they knew each other, and she turned and headed purposefully towards the ship. Ezra, in turn, followed her as quietly as he could. Several years of stealing chocolate chip cookies could only do so much, but it was evidently enough to get him on board the beaten-up old ship.

His young eyes darted around the hall as the forms of the Togrutan and the human disappeared towards the front of the ship. At last his sight rested on a door to the side, some part of his mind nudging him to hide there. As quietly as he could, he opened the door.

The room was rather dark, very drab, and more than a little boring to the average 7-year-old. Part of Ezra wondered why he even decided to use this of all places as a hiding spot, while another part felt a vague fascination of the place that most would not feel.

Some of the scuff marks painfully reminded him of his home and the Empire. Some of the familiar hate flared up once again, but somehow the room seemed to keep the tears from coming.

The whole place had a rather calming feel to it; however, the serene aura of the room did not do away with curiosity.

Ezra crept towards the odd-looking bed, hardly having to crouch to reach the drawers in the side. These drawers were hardly noticeable, but Ezra spotted them.

One drawer held a silver stick similar to the one the Togrutan had held, but rounder and straighter. The other of the two compartments held an odd cube with clearly grooved corners that seemed like it was meant to come apart yet refused to do so.

He rubbed his finger along the corners of the cube, but soon lost interest, and turned his attention to the handle of the currently inactive glowing sword.

Ezra handled the silver stick gently, forgetting to even turn it on in his awe of the legendary weapon. Two such things in one day? It was more than any boy could ask for!

After fondling it for a few seconds more, he plopped it into his bag, feeling a slight sense of alarm for some reason.

He looked around anxiously for a moment, then set his eyes on a ventilation vent just barely accessible from the top of the bunk.

His young body scaled the bed with a valiant effort, reaching it as he heard footsteps just begin. Thankfully, the vent cover came off easily, and he slipped into the vent and pulled the cover behind him.

It seemed that his "escape" was just in time, for the door opened mere moments later. Unfortunately, as young boys are prone to do, the drawers were left open.

Ezra stifled a gasp as the human, the Togrutan, and a Twilek came into the room and laid eyes on the drawers.

He had a bad feeling about this.

The human came over to the drawers and looked over them while the Twilek did a preliminary search of the room from the doorway and the Togrutan... closed her eyes?

Ezra wasn't sure what she was doing, but what did he care if she was a great, half-mythical Jedi? Other than the fact that he was hiding from them.

"I still sense the presence," the human said, his half-long hair framing his clean-shaven face.

"I sense it now as well," the Togrutan said. Her voice was younger than Ezra had expected.

"Well, he's not in this room right now," the Twilek said.

"Then where--" the human began, only to be cut off by the Togrutan.

"The vents!" She said suddenly. All the heads in the room looked up at once while his own head shrank backwards. He attempted to turn around, only managing to hit his black-haired head in the process.

"Ow," his muffled exclamation came.

"Definitely the vents," the human said as he climbed the bed. The vent covering easily dislodged under his hands and would have hit his head without some invisible force that moved it away. As he rubbed his head and nearly held his breath for stealth's sake, Ezra once again noted the difference between the invisible hand of the Empire and the invisible Force of the great Jedi.

The covering now on the bed, the human got on his knees despite the give of the bed and stuck his head and shoulders through the opening.

Ezra tried to crawl away, but he was instead being pulled towards this stranger.

"Easy does it. You're going to hit your head if you keep struggling," he said in a calm voice to Ezra.

Like this would be any better, Ezra thought as a retort. He resigned himself to his fate; he did not want to have a second goose egg on his head.

The human pulled his well-built frame from the mouth of the vent to allow Ezra to resentfully clamber out of it. And so he did, a pouting look on his face.

"So this is the disturbance?" the green female Twilek said, a little under-impressed, but she had a half-hidden smile on her face.

Both the human and the Togrutan affirmed her statement.

"I'm not just a disturbance, you know," Ezra huffed.

"Well what are we supposed to call you, then?" the Twilek asked, still half-hiding a smile at his nature; she found it somewhat quaint.

"You first," he ordered, a small attempt at a smirk on his face.

The two alien females now had small smiles on their faces at his actions, while the human seemed to not notice and kept his face perfectly straight.

"Kanan Jarrus, Ahsoka Tano, Hera Syndulla. Now, who are you?" He said briskly, motioning to himself, the Togrutan, and the Twilek in turn.

"Ezra Bridger," he mumbled, a stab of pain coming with the enunciation of his last name-- a stab that did not go unnoticed by the two Jedi.

He did an admirable job of keeping the pain off his face, but those in the room knew that wars leave scars, not all of which can be seen.

Just then, a small, orange, beat-up looking astromech droid rolled into the room. He started speaking in whatever language that those sort of droids speak in.

Hera's attention was turned to the droid; Ahsoka helped Ezra down, despite his fussing and very much to his chagrin. The boy dusted off his rumpled orange, cream, and brown outfit off and tightened the straps of his bag that was slung over his shoulders with the delicacy of a rancor.

"Well, fix it!" Hera said to the droid. She then turned to Kanan. "Apparently the hyperdrive is acting up again," she said, her tone somewhat frustrated but not overly so.

"Of course it is," the Jedi mumbled. He sighed. "Well, let's go, Chop," he said, a bit of resignation in his voice. He and the droid exited the room closely followed by Hera.

Now there were two in the room.

Alone.

But at least not isolated.

Ezra felt like the somewhat normal life that he had executed mere days before was a distant memory, company being something impossible.

Of course, up until that day, he would have thought Jedi equally impossible.

Funny how the invisible hand had brought him to the invisible Force.

"I guess I'm in charge of you, then," Ahsoka said.

Ezra rolled his eyes and made a small noise of dissatisfaction.

"I'm that bad, huh?"

Another noise. He sat next to Kanan's bed, knees pulled to his chest, glaring at the wall across the room whose full view was obstructed by a shelf.

"What made you follow me?" She asked in a quiet voice.

She got a shrug at first. It took a moment for Ezra to think about it and really isolate what it was that made him follow her.

"Lots of things, I guess. Your glowing sword. How fun and exciting your chase looked. That's not all, but I'm not sure why else. I just... came," he said, his voice relatively soft at first, then a bit louder, then fading into softness once more and then silence.

Ahsoka thought on his answer for a bit. "I think I might know what that last reason was," she said after a moment.

Ezra shifted a bit in interest, his glare softened and redirected to the orange face of the Togrutan. "What do you think it is?" He asked, skepticism and curiosity showing in his eyes.

One could tell many things from the eyes of another person. Many, many things. Experience, emotion, thoughts. Many, many things.

Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, then answered in a low tone. "The Force," she said, conveying great seriousness in her voice.

She got a blank stare. "The Force?" Ezra questioned with a bit of incredulousness in the phrase.

"A mystic energy, in all living things. Even in the very rocks, if you're close enough to it to notice it. It fills us, surrounds us, and binds the galaxy together. It's what makes a Jedi a Jedi," she explained with the spark of what might be called nostalgia in her voice.

A slow understanding began to creep into Ezra's clear blue eyes. "What... What does it feel like?" He asked with more regard for her words.

"It depends. If something is dark, it feels cold. If something is wrong, there's a small push in your heart and butterflies in your stomach. To call on the Force feels like stone and a warm, comfortable fire at the same time. There are other feelings, but that's most of how it feels," Ahsoka said, thinking rather deeply, speaking softly and clearly and slowly all at the same time.

The slow understanding that had dawned in Ezra's young mind now burst like the moments just after full sunrise, or a sudden gap in the clouds that showers down gold streams of light that were entirely unexpected.

"The man you were chasing earlier... was... was he dark?" Ezra asked, recalling that deep-seated coldness that he had felt as the dark man had come closer.

Ahsoka sighed, and looked to the ceiling of the cabin. "Sadly, yes. He was once one of the most... strict, I suppose, and disciplined, members of the Jedi order. He went by Mace Windu then.

"Something happened, though, the day after... Empire Day. He went to arrest Emperor Palpatine with several Jedi Masters. The masters were killed by the Emperor."

"By the Emperor?" Ezra asked. He knew that the Empire was evil, and he had assumed the Emperor was behind it, but how could one frail old man kill several Jedi masters?

She studied his face a moment, and, evidently deeming him trustworthy enough, answered him. "It is a closely guarded secret that few know. I wouldn't have known without careful study and a bit of grapevine action. Emperor Palpatine is a Sith lord." She announced this with dark and solid certainty, a bit of sadness, and underlying anger for the man.

Through her thoughts, though, she managed to see that Ezra once again had no idea what she was talking about.

"Sith lords. Evil. Use anger, hate, pain, and fear to become powerful. There's more to the story, but even I got confused at some points," she said, her mind turning a bit to reality.

The Emperor was evil. He understood that now. No longer as abstract of a hand, and more known. It seemed to Ezra that this revelation made what had happened to them all the more fresh and real.

He wouldn't let himself cry. He wouldn't. "What happened with Window, then?"

"Mace Windu was betrayed by an apprentice of Palpatine. He had lived his life balancing between good and evil, channeling anger and walking in light. The betrayal pushed him over the edge," Ahsoka said. There was only the lightest hint of remorse in her voice-- evidently this Windu was not as popular among Jedi as he may have liked.

"Maybe there is still hope for his redemption, but first, I must capture him. He is incredibly powerful, and I fear only one will be able to combat him," she finished, more sadness creeping into her voice.

Ezra was not as drawn into himself as he had been. Stories have a way of doing that to children, and Ezra was no exception.

The silence continued for a moment or two as Ahsoka and Ezra mulled over their thoughts. Some thoughts were sad, others were plan-like.

It was a lovely silence, one of pensive, vacant reverie, one that was supplemented by the sound of engines and the internal workings of the ship.

And then, of course, it wasn't silence any longer. Kanan entered the room, his combat boots knocking somewhat pleasantly on the metal floor.

"We just made the jump to hyperspace. Let's hope that tracker of yours works," he said with his level-headed matter-of-fact-ness that one could not help but admire to some degree. "In addition, I may be wrong, but I believe these are my quarters? There are a couple of spare rooms across the hall."

Ahsoka smiled a small flash of a smile, the most she could manage in such a torn galaxy. She then rose from her position by his bed. "I'll keep an eye on Ezra," she said, helping the boy up off the cold floor.

A mock-defiant smirk came over his face as he took her help, but it was soon erase at a second glance at Kanan's stony face.

Kanan raise his hand momentarily, signalling, Ezra supposed.

"Go into the room down the hall there," Ahsoka said, indicating the room in question. "The doors should open automatically."

He nodded, of course, but as soon as the doors closed on Ezra's conversation, he crept next to the doors, straining to hear what they were saying.

"While you're with him, make sure to at least try to recover them," Kanan said in his laid-back yet commanding voice.

"Of course," Ahsoka said. Ezra imagined her montrals and lekku bobbing with a subdued nod of her head.

"And one more thing, Ahsoka," Kanan said. Ezra could hear the compaction of his bed as he apparently leaned against it.

"Yes?"

"Keep a very, very close eye on him. He's fairly sneaky," Kanan said, attempting to sound grave but instead sounding rather like one who is trying and failing to suppress a bit of mirth or laughter.

"Why wouldn't I?" Ahsoka answered with a question, her response holding the same amount of the nearly impossible lightheartedness, if not more, as Kanan had had in his voice.

"Alright, you can go now." More compaction of the bunk.

Ezra snuck as quickly as he could over to the door previously indicated and slipped inside just in time.

The door to Kanan's quarters slid open just after the vacant rooms doors closed.

Ezra breathed a mental sigh of relief as Ahsoka entered the room, seemingly unaware of his escapades.


	3. The Ghost

The sound of pounded Lothal dust was distant, but distance never stopped a Jedi. Not even if they had stopped being a Jedi in the middle of their training.

Especially not if their name was Kanan Jarrus.

This Jedi, ex- or otherwise, was sitting in the cockpit of a modified Correllian VCX-100 light freighter, affectionately known by he and his best friend (and perhaps something more), Hera Syndulla, as the Ghost.

The Force was his ally, and a powerful ally it was. At the moment, he was reaching out to feel those who created the sound that floated into the open ship with the dust it kicked up.

He let a small, rare smile onto his face as he recognized one of the runners through the Force, but immediately this expression was quashed by the presence of the dark warrior that they had been chasing for several years.

There was another presence, but he paid it no heed; he assumed it was a loth-cat or some other animal.

Ahsoka he had known for a while. After a senator that had been fairly prominent and quite influential prior to the rise of the Empire had assembled the embryonic beginnings of a Rebellion, he and Ahsoka had occasionally worked together on certain missions.

He had done his best to let go of actively being a Jedi, but he kept a holocron and a lightsaber in his room-- whether the Force told him to keep him or he was being nostalgic, he didn't know.

Ahsoka was active with the Force, and through necessity and circumstance, Kanan had been more so as well.

They were relatively good friends; they had both been mentored by rather prominent Jedi in the old Order and both had left-- admittedly for different reasons and times, but they had left.

Currently, he and Hera were serving as back-up on Ahsoka's ongoing mission: to capture someone who was possibly one of the most powerful Force users in the galaxy at present.

He still thought of it as a galaxy rather than The Empire. The Empire didn't exist too far out into the outer rim, and it didn't dare to extend into the galactic core or into the uncharted regions of space. So it was a galaxy.

He doubted he, Hera, and the Ghost would be needed, but one never knew what would happen with Force-users literally running around.

He stood up, put on his best straight, cold, perfectly Jedi-like face, and strode out to the open ramp. Just before he got to the end, it became clear that he would indeed be needed.

Quite the large explosion erupted from a nearby ship, a ship that Kanan knew well. Ahsoka's ship.

He got out just in time to gaze over the burning wreckage of what had once been a space-worthy craft.

Another personal fighter pulled out of the hangar as his eyes took in this red, black, and orange monstrosity.

He looked directly at Ahsoka and just barely stopped himself from reaching out with the Force to tell her to come to the ship, having temporarily forgotten that she already knew what to do.

She strode confidently towards the Ghost with great purpose that not all sentients (human or otherwise) could pull off.

In the back of his mind, Kanan felt that the other presence followed, yet once again he dismissed it as a loth-cat or some other small vermin that infested the already over-industrialized planet.

Of course, it didn't take much to convince Kanan of that, but still.

Ahsoka's soft yet rugged boots barely made a sound on the durasteel ramp that doubled as a back door.

"Fulcrum," Kanan acknowledged her, using her code name.

"Kanan," she said back, not the least bit out of breath thanks to the Force.

They turned towards the cockpit, not caring about the small, quiet presence that followed them. Kanan didn't care too much about bringing loth-cats on board.

Hera had been cleaning carbon scoring off of part of the Ghost's hull, but now she jumped down through a top hatch and made her way to a cockpit, arriving just as they did.

"Fulcrum, good to see you, though I fear what it means for the mission," Hera said, wiping a bit of grease off her cheek.

"I planted a tracker on Kessel's ship, so it shouldn't be too bad," Ahsoka said, looking the Twilek straight in the eye.

"Alright. I suppose we should get out of here, then," she replied, looking up at some of the controls on the roof of the cockpit.

Kanan nodded, then perked up at some invisible prod. Ahsoka, too, looked up to the hallway. "I sense a disturbance," the Jedi said.

"In your room, Kanan," Ahsoka said, starting for the round hall.

Hera followed them, a bit perplexed, not caring about her boots clomping on the durasteel floor that she knew stretched directly over a cargo bay.

The two Force-users crept along, stretching out to the Force in unison. Kanan felt it had something to do with his... bed?

The only things Kanan kept there were some stray meal-packs, and, of more worth, his old lightsaber and a Jedi holocron.

Subconsciously, he held his breath, suspending all unnecessary noises and relying on the Force as much as a rusty ex-Jedi could.

The doors to his room slid open with a his, and a faint click was barely audible overhead.

The drawers in his bed were slid open, empty. Unsurprisingly, the sandwich drawer was closed.

Did that mean the would-be thief was Force-sensitive? Kanan found himself wondering.

Hera came in behind them, still wearing a slightly confused face, but that seemed to be clearing at the sight of the empty drawers.

"I still sense the presence," Kanan said, looking around his cabin.

"I sense it fully now, as well," Ahsoka said, stretching out farther, trying to pinpoint where it was.

Hera examined the room, scrutinizing every conceivable hiding place that an adult human could fit in.

"Then where--" Kanan started, failing to rely enough on the Force, when Ahsoka interrupted him.

"The vents!" Her Force probing had definitely paid off.

The three Rebels looked up at the vent covering. A tense beat passed, broken by a muffled, "Ow."

"Definitely the vents," Kanan said, scaling the bed. His deft fingers quickly loosened the vent covering, and he quickly placed it on the bed with the Force, narrowly missing a goose bump on his head.

He got to his knees despite the give of the bed, his head thrust in the vents. Not the smartest thing to do with an experienced thief, who almost certainly would kick him, but Kanan paid such thoughts know heed, if they even dared to surface.

"Easy does it," Kanan said, his voice relatively soft and very calm, looking at the receding dark form. The shadow was in the shape of a human boy, crawling away. Quite young, judging from the size of him.

He steadily pulled the boy towards him. "You're going to hit your head if you keep struggling," he said.

The boy begrudgingly resigned himself to his fate. Kanan removed himself from the vent so as to allow the boy to (quite resentfully) crawl out of the tight constraints of the Ghost's vents.

Hera looked at the boy with a half smile. "So this is the disturbance?" She asked, restraining a chuckle. She was admittedly a bit under-impressed at the disturbance caused by such a slight creature, but one had to admire a boy who used the vents to hide. He could have at least closed the drawers of the bunk.

Kanan and Ahsoka nodded in response to her question.

"I'm not just a disturbance, you know," the boy said in a slightly biting tone.

"Well, what are we supposed to call you?" Hera asked, still finding humor in the situation.

"You first," the child ordered.

Ahsoka, too, now hid a smile.

"Kanan Jarrus, Ahsoka Tano, Hera Syndulla. Now, who are you?" Kanan said, the words sounding a bit more brisk than he would have liked, but his face was, to his satisfaction, perfectly straight.

"Ezra Bridger," he mumbled. Kanan felt a pang from the boy as he uttered that surname.

He did an admirable job of keeping the pain off his face, but those in the room knew that wars leave scars, not all of which can be seen.

Just then, an orange droid came clanging into the room, beeping wildly. Chopper waved his arms violently at Hera, ignoring Ahsoka and Ezra.

"Well fix it!" Hera said. Chopper complained in mock dejection. "Apparently the hyperdrive is acting up again," she said, a slight bit frustrated. She loved her ship, and they had been through many things together, but much action brings a propensity for breaking small bit more often.

"Of course it is," Kanan said, mumbled more, really. "Well, come on, Chop." Kanan turned and exited his room with the excentric droid, Hera following close behind.

The door slid shut with a hiss on Ahsoka and Ezra.

Kanan, Hera, and Chopper strode (and rolled) with purpose towards the engine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of POV overlap from the last chapter for Kanan's character ark.


	4. A Heat Vent and a Lightsaber

"You say he came out of hyperspace?" Ahsoka Tano said, entering the cockpit. The beautiful blue and white streaks of hyperspace glowed through the window, but Ahsoka hoped they would end soon, as that would mean the end of that leg of the chase.

"Yes. On an Outer Rim planet," Hera said, sitting at the controls. "We should be in proximity in about... five minutes."

"Alright," Ahsoka said, nodding, her montrals and lekku bobbing. "Let me know as soon as we drop out of Hyperspace."

She turned to leave, but was stopped by Kanan. She had only been in the room with Ezra for 15 or so minutes, and most of it had been spent in silence.

"Who's with the kid?" Kanan asked, standing between his chair and Ahsoka.

"Uh, Chopper. I'm sure he can handle Ezra," she answered, shifting her weight to a more comfortable position than that of taking another step.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. He's slippery," Kanan said, brows lightly furrowing.

"And Force sensitive," Ahsoka said with certainty. Kanan nodded.

"We'll have to do something about him. He may not be overly strong, but any Force sensitive is strong enough to be a threat when turned to the Dark side," he said, his eyebrows furrowing even more, shadowing his blue-green eyes.

"I'll make sure to keep an eye on him. I better get back, anyway," the Togrutan said, smiling.

The two former Jedi nodded, and Ahsoka returned to the room for the remainder of the trip.

The door of the bare room slid open with a hiss, and at once she was bombarded with the beeping and rattling on about Ezra.

"Where'd he go?" Ahsoka asked the droid. It was good to have a droid to talk to. She missed Artoo, but Chopper was just as humorous.

She stretched out with the Force as Chopper blabbered on with irrelevant data and found that Ezra had, indeed, left the room via vents.

Hadn't he heard that they were in hyperspace? Didn't he know what that meant? Maybe he thought he could escape. He was only seven. And to think she had thought she had earned his trust.

She mentally sighed. Although she was tall, about 6 inches of that were her montrals, thus making her actual height 5'7" with a slender, acrobatic build.

She worked with the side box that led to the ventilation system. At some points in the vents could be somewhat dangerous, but over all it was a safe way to maneuver about the ship if you knew where the passages led.

If you didn't know where the vents led, you could encounter fans, or worse, heat vents of the hyperdrive.

She crawled into the vents, ignoring the less-than-ideal size, and closed her eyes.

Left, the Force told her. She followed its instructions throughout the maze, straight towards the hyperdrive.

She was near Ezra now, she could feel it. And she could also feel a warning tinge in the Force. Her eyes snapped open and she pulled the boy towards her, despite his cries of dissatisfaction.

"Hey!" He snapped, stuck in the invisible Force's grasp once more. "What do you think you're doing?"

The hyperdrive heat vent washed them with heat.

"That. If you had been where you were, when that thing vented, you'd wouldn't be in serious trouble, you'd be dead," she said.

Ezra's mouth hung open, but he quickly closed it and squeaked out a thank you.

"Now let's get back. We'll be jumping out of hyperspace soon," Ahsoka said quietly.

Ezra numbly followed her back to the room. He didn't think he'd have another brush with death so soon after the abduction of his parents.

They soon entered the bare room, and just in time, too. The door slid open with a hiss just after Ahsoka fitted the covering back in.

The two were somewhat suspiciously more covered in grime than they had been the last time Kanan had seen them, but that seemed to be a staple in that ship and he ignored it.

"We just jumped out of hyperspace," he said unblinking.

"What planet are we in orbit above?" Ahsoka said, standing up from where she had been working on the vent and brushing herself off.

"A planet in the far reaches of the Outer Rim. Tatooine," Kanan said. "We'll be taking the Phantom. We'll need everyone."

"What about Ezra?" Ahsoka asked, looking straight at Kanan.

"I'm right here, you know," Ezra mumbled. Ahsoka flashed a quick smile at his remark.

Kanan sighed. "Chopper has to come, you have to come, Hera has to be prepared at a moment's notice to pick us up, and I have to pilot the Phantom and help with Force feats...," Kanan thought aloud.

"He is stealthy," Ahsoka said, urging him to continue his thoughts. "He wouldn't give us away. Most he would do is run away, and even then, we can find him. I doubt he would leave on Tatooine. He seemed pretty rooted to Lothal."

Kanan gave another, more exasperated, much louder sigh. "I'm going to regret this," he muttered. "Fine! Fine. He can come. He's going to need to give me my lightsaber back, though."

Ezra had noticeably relaxed once Kanan said that he could come, though he was still irked about them talking about him like he wasn't there. However, he tightened again when he mentioned the lightsaber and let out a small sigh at losing something that had to be worth a lot on the black market.

He pulled his ill-fitting backpack from his shoulders and practically ripped the top off. He dug through the bag, his hand running into the holocron, the loth-rat meal package, some exotic fruits, and finally, the lightsaber.

He pulled it out, dropped the backpack, and, on impulse, pressed the button.

Krschoormmmmmm.

Kanan and Ahsoka ducked back, but Ezra smiled a bit.

"Turn it off," Kanan coaxed in a nervous voice. He reached out with the Force, a reflex that he was finding to be more and more common, and turned the lightsaber off. He then pulled it towards him.

"This thing is incredibly dangerous! You don't just go waving it around! You're lucky that it was on its lowest setting!" Kanan cried, his cool, calm, slightly sarcastic demeanor dropping and shattering.

Ezra withered under this bombardment of words. "Sheesh, he said in a somewhat breaking voice. He realized that if it was dangerous enough to make the statue of a Jedi lose his cold face, it must be dangerous enough to pay attention to. He wasn't sure if that meant stealing it again to sell it, or leaving it be, or trying to make them let him learn about it.

Kanan took a deep breath, his face returning with not insignificant effort on his part. "Just... just don't touch it," he managed to say.

Taking that saber was like taking on his old mantle. He felt more and more like a Jedi, like he had been under Depa Billabi in the temple, during the clone wars.

He was a Jedi again, and he had a job to do.


	5. Tatooine and Astromech Attitude

The Phantom was a tiny shuttle, bare and dark, but comfortable and quite useful. Despite its tininess, it managed to fit Kanan in the pilot's seat, with Chopper copiloting from an outlet and Ahsoka watching Ezra in the back.

The planet in front of them was a ball of dust, red and tan, the haze of its atmosphere a blurry blue.

Ahsoka held in her hand a datapad that showed a red dot on the surface of the sandy globe where their quarry lay.

"We're approaching the bearing. Let's hope he hasn't strayed far," Ahsoka's relatively young-sounding voice announced.

"We're about to enter the atmosphere. Chopper, do you have the angle of descent calculated?" Kanan asked, never taking his eyes off the front view that included the several gauges and the massive planet.

Chopper beeped affirmatives in reply, and the Phantom began to skim the hot atmosphere of the planet. The warmly glowing engines complimented the dusty planet's surface. The outer reaches of the air seemed to sparkle as the Phantom descended.

"How do you understand those beeps?" Ezra inquired of Ahsoka.

The Togrutan thought for a moment, formulating her reply. "I suppose it is just a time thing. After a while, you will almost certainly pick it up," she said, shifting her gaze from the datapad to Ezra.

Ezra nodded a bit, then began looking out the front window. Ahsoka's eyes returned to the datapad.

Chopper beeped and garbled, seemingly at Ezra, in a condescending manner that the seven-year-old could not miss. Instead of a look of discouragement, Ezra's face brightened.

"I think I am getting the hang of it... a little," he said, some of his black hair uncovering his face as his head bounced up a little.

The Phantom landed behind a sand dune, causing a small cushion of dust to arise from the parched ground.

"Chopper, stay with the Phantom," Kanan ordered as the door in the back slid open.

Generally Kanan would have had the beat-up old droid in the astromech pocket on top, but on a desert planet like Tatooine, that wasn't the best for condition.

Ezra followed Kanan out of the ship, with Ahsoka close behind him.

The young boy had never seen so much sand, nor did he assume there was that much in the whole galaxy. He was used to duracrete and durasteel cities and loth-cat ridden amber fields of grasses.

The sand felt odd beneath his feet, displacing easily with each stealthy, carefully placed step.

The trio made their way to the side of the sand dune, Ahsoka taking the lead. Around the bend sat the fighter with the tracking device inconspicuously placed.

"All clear," Ahsoka said.

"Now to find where he got off to," Kanan said, scanning the horizon for possible threats.

"Ezra, be careful not to disturb the tracks," Ahsoka said, glancing at the boy.

"Okay," he mumbled, stepping ever more carefully despite his sour facade.

The two adults proceeded to inspect the ground while Ezra returned to the somewhat skimpy shadow the sand dune offered. At least it was some coolness.

"The tracks head west," Kanan said, rising from the crouching position he had been in.

Ahsoka motioned to Ezra to follow them. He would have mumbled again save for the growing sense of adventure he felt. One may have thought that such a warmth would be undesirable on such a desert planet, but gladly, internal warmth is far more comfortable than external heat.

The tracks continued on as far as Ezra could see, though a wind was picking up, and that range was becoming smaller by the moment.

Walking through that breeze-blown sand was like trudging through ice-topped snow, constantly struggling with each step, beating the snowflakes out of your face and crunching through that top layer. The whole process was just as tiring in smoldering heat as in a freezing waste.

With each step they took, it seemed that the wind picked up. It wasn't terribly dangerous yet, but it would be. The Dark Jedi's tracks were not fully disturbed, but they were vanishing.

After 15 minutes of trudging in silence, they came upon a city. It was usually gleaming white, but the growing sand storm had diminished the glow to a fogginess that rivaled the planet's atmosphere.

The buildings were rounded and were lighter, much more solid versions of the sand that surrounded them. The city walls were just as rounded, and old speeders zoomed in but not out of the gates, fleeing the amassing storm.

This was Mos Eisley, one of the most scum-filled cities in the Empire.

Thanks to the shielding of the city's walls, travel was far easier inside than out other than the few regiments of storm troopers that occupied most Outer Rim planets.

In the days of the Republic, these planets had been practically a place in itself, none of the galaxy's laws applying there. Evidently the Empire had taken it upon themselves to remediate the prior situation.

The three figures stumbled up to the gate, expecting to find some sort of registration or something of the sort, yet they found nothing but an open archway. The only rule of that gate was that you didn't get run over by the influx of traffic.

"I guess we walk right in," Ahsoka said.

"Of course we do," Kanan replied, recalling some of his previous years between time spent as a Jedi and time with Hera on the Ghost. They were not among his fondest memories.

Ezran followed the two Force-users, staring wide-eyed at the change of architecture and all the small differences between Tatooine and Lothal. He was amazed at all the things that were different, from the temperature to the architecture to the quality of the vehicles.

The three walked through the dusty streets, the sky darkening all the while. Kanan was looking with his eyes for the fallen Windu, while Ahsoka searched through the Force, and Ezra kept falling farther and farther behind.

A tug in his mind pulled Ezra farther and farther away from the small group. The buildings loomed darker with the fading of the sky. Gusts of wind spilled into the city little by little.

The next thing he knew, he was in a market.


	6. Sand and Surprises

It was Ahsoka who first noticed Ezra was missing. Her connection to the Force alerted her slowly at first, then sharply all at once (at that point, Ezra had found himself in the market).

"Kanan!" the Togrutan said sharply, her eyes snapping open.

He turned in surprise at the cry. "Are you alright?" He asked, not noticing the loss of Ezra.

"I'm fine," she said. "It's Ezra. He's gone."

Kanan looked around a bit, and then realized that her statement was quite true. "Oh, no," he grumbled, face palming and letting his hand fall down his face.

"We have to find him," Ahsoka said with a quiet urgency.

"The Force tells me the same, unfortunately," Kanan said in a resigned manner.

"Oh, come on," Ahsoka exclaimed. "He'll grow on you, trust me," she said, a bit of playfulness in her voice.

He sighed. "Let's get going, then," he said quietly, dipping himself ever so slightly into the Force the way one would step carefully onto the first step of a cold swimming pool.

Meanwhile, in the market, Ezra was having an absolute feast of the eyes-- and a future one for the belly-- as he followed that tug in his mind. Could it be the Force? He wondered that absently. 

He slipped some dried something or other from a stand, yet he had made the blunder of stumbling into one of the smart booth operators once more.

"Hey! You little gavroche, you get back here!" The armored alien said.

Ezra took off running towards that tug in his head-- the Force, he thought with absolute certainty. He did not look back.

He was close to that tug, very close. And suddenly-- he was right on top of that tug.

A blond-haired boy about his age in light garbs grabbed his arm with a tanned hand and pulled him into an alley.

"Sh," the boy said. Ezra looked at him with a bewildered face. "The booth owner might be smart enough to know you stole something, but he's only focused on his merch'. He won't find you here," he whispered.

Ezra nodded silently and looked to the significantly lighter opening of the alley. The booth owner ran past, looked around, and crept back to his booth, irate and defeated.

Both boys breathed a sigh of relief as the vendor disappeared from view.

"Thanks for the save," Ezra said. "Name's Ezra Bridger. You?"

"Luke Skywalker," the blond boy replied. "You aren't from around here, are you?"

Ezra shifted. "No... I'm from Lothal," he said, drawing out some of the syllables.

"How did you get here? Did your parents bring you?" Luke asked, unaware of how much pain that question could garner.

As much as he tried to stop it, fat, blurry tears swelled in Ezra's eyes. "My parents... were taken by the Empire," he said, his voice breaking and filled with a sort of uncertain, rage-filled sorrow that didn't know how to handle itself. "I snuck on board a ship that was chasing another ship, but they found me and agreed to let me come here with them." He sniffed.

Luke stood there, shocked and hurting for this boy he hardly knew. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I... I never met my parents. I know what it's like to not have them. My Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen are good to me, and old Ben Kenobi sometimes looks out for me, but it's not the same as having my parents."

Ezra looked up from the dusty ground and managed a smile, smearing away the tears and taking a slightly shaky breath. "It may not be the same, but... thank you."

Just then, a voice came, clear and rugged, through the market. "Luke! Luke, where are you?"

Luke gasped a bit and looked at where the voice was coming from. "That's my uncle. Here, you can come with me," he said, motioning to Ezra.

The Loth boy followed the Tatooinian boy towards said uncle. They wiggled their way through the crowd and made it to a rough-looking farmer who held a netted bag with droid parts.

"There you are, Luke. Who's your friend?" The man asked, evaluating Ezra with a skeptical eye. He noted the dirty clothes and lean figure of the young boy.

"I'm Ezra Bridger," he answered, wary of that eye of the man.

"This is my uncle, Owen Lars," Luke informed Ezra. The black-haired boy nodded.

"Hello," Ezra said, finding the courage to look Owen straight in the eye.

"Well, do you have permission to be out here alone, Ezra?" Owen asked, sounding like a chastisement more than a question.

"I don't have much else to do," Ezra said, not realizing how shaky that sounded to Luke's uncle, who looked at him even more skeptically.

"Well, you can tag along, but if we run into the people in charge of you, I'm not handling it," Owen said, not entirely comfortable with the idea of bringing this ragamuffin with him, but still starting to feel a bit bad for him.

"Thanks, Uncle Owen," Luke said, flashing a timid smile at the farmer.

"Hm," the rough man said, looking carefully over at his temporary charge.

The three started towards the busted-up old speeder they had come in. To say Ezra was under-impressed would be a bit of a false statement. "That's the coolest speeder I've ever seen!" Ezra whispered to Luke.

"Really? It's an old model. It goes plenty fast, though," Luke whispered back. None of the whispers got past Owen, and he hid a smile from the young boys.

They stepped to the speeder and Ezra ran his hand over it. The surface was warped in some places, with layers upon layers of paint flaking off and bubbles from engine heat and such. Sand grains were embedded in some spots on the old speeder, and different patches of color sometimes showed through.

Owen slung his net bag into the trunk portion of the speeder and Ezra observed the dip and recovery of the vehicle with that move.

Luke climbed into it, landing on the ripped up seat on the back bench. Ezra followed, sitting next to him.

No sign of the Rebels yet.

Owen sat down in the driver's seat and warmed up the engines. They spit a little, but soon evened out into a nice, smooth buzz. They were on their way out of Mos Eisley.

They wove through houses, cantinas, and market stalls, skirting storm trooper platoons and finally making their way to the gate-- where Kanan and Ahsoka stopped it.

They jumped off the heat-deflecting, dome-topped buildings down to in front of the speeder and used a simultaneous yet inconspicuous Force push to stop the speeder.

"Kid, this better not be your fault," Owen grumbled.

Ezra just shrugged.

"Where were you going, Ezra?" Kanan inquired, raising an eyebrow as intimidatingly as he could possibly raise it.

"We were going to my moisture farm about 2 miles east of here. Outrun the storm. I would suggest that if you don't want to get caught in the storm, you either let us go, or come with us. I've got a blaster, don't you worry," Owen said, despite previously establishing that he would not be defending Ezra or dealing with him in such a manner.

"We do not plan to remain in Mos Eisley for to long. We were going to go back to our ship for some over-land flights," Ahsoka said, giving a slight warning look to Kanan to ensure he remained silent and allowed her to do the talking.

"You don't want to go far in this weather, much less fly," Owen said gruffly. He gave a hefty sigh. "Look, pile in. Stay at my farm until the storm passes, and then you can be on your way," he said, a bit gentler than before.

Kanan and Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, and were ushered on by the farmer. "Go on, climb in," he said, almost commanding them. Kanan climbed into the passengers seat as he got speeder-sick in the back, and Ahsoka hopped in the back to watch Ezra and Luke.

The speeder sputter a bit once more, and they were soon on their way. It was a surprisingly fast vehicle, with a windshield that blocked at least a bit of the sand storm. The engines kicked up dust into the towering, dark sand storm.

Ahsoka, arm blocking her face from the sand, turned towards Ezra. She considered speaking to him, but decided against it what with the wind picking up and all.

It took but 5 minutes to travel to the moisture farm, at which they all rushed inside, Owen toting hi net bag of droid products in addition to his own weight.

The sand stung their faces and arms, anywhere that was exposed felt like it had just been whipped by a thousand tiny knives. The wind tugged at their clothes, and hair-- and montrals, too.

The outline of the farm was barely visible in this full-blown sand storm, but Owen knew where he was going and what he was doing, and 4 out of the 5 there were Force sensitive whether they knew it or not.

The stairs down into the hole that the Lars home inhabited was almost completely disregarded by Ezra, Kanan, and Ahsoka, who jumped down with great speed and landed as gently as one could on the ground of a hole on a sandy planet in the middle of a sand storm. Luke and Owen mere skipped as many steps as they could without hurting themselves.

The arch of the home was extremely welcome when they touched it, despite its burning temperature. Owen strode in, not minding the sand. Luke and Ezra almost hopped in, and... Kanan and Ahsoka flopped.

Sand cascaded over the floor, but Beru Lars didn't mind. Her warm face had been worried, but now she was relieved and embraced Owen.

"I'm so glad you're home safe," she said, holding him at arm's length and inspecting him. She pulled him close once more. "Please stop these sand storm runs. Please," she said, her voice muffled in his rough tunics.

She knew her pleas didn't mean that much in the decision making of her beloved husband's mind, but it made her feel a bit better to voice them.

"You shouldn't worry so much, Beru," Owen comforted her, patting her on the back and then relinquishing her to the hot, dry air.

Beru laughed a little, then turned to the visitors. "Who are our guests?" She asked Owen in a pleasant tone. Not many people wanted to visit a moisture farm, so company was a treat.

Kanan dusted some of the sand off his outfit and assisted Ahsoka to her feet. "Kanan Jarrus, Ashla Tano, Ezra Bridger," he said in that same brisk, to-the-point voice he used and motioning to each person in turn.

Ahsoka nodded as her name was spoken. "We thank you for your hospitality, Mrs....?"

"Lars, Beru Lars. And I'm sure you know this is my husband, Owen. What brings you out here around Mos Eisley? Girl like you shouldn't be around the likes of that town," Beru said in a motherly tone.

Kanan opened his mouth, but Ahsoka warned him through the Force not to say anything. "We're just passing through, don't worry," the Togrutan said in a reassuring tone.

"Alright then. Well, I wasn't expecting visitors, but I've got some vegetable packs that I got this week, if you wouldn't mind having dinner in such a sandy place as this," Beru said, not waiting for a reply. She turned a went into the kitchen and busied herself with preparing the meal.

"Don't mind her. She's always happy to serve anyone who isn't usually around. She's a hostess, not so much a farmer's wife. She does the job and I love her, though," Owen said, his heat-cracked throat expressing rare tenderness that was at most times covered up by a strict face.

"She's fine. I've known several people like that," Ahsoka said.

"Pardon," Kanan interjected, "Is there any room where we could spend the night? Any shelter will do," he said in the best negotiator's voice he could muster.

"This house is as empty as the rivers of Tatooine, and just as bone dry. You can pick pretty much anywhere you want in the first or third sections. The fourth section is mostly maintenance for droids, and this is the section where most of the actual living happens.

"Thank you once again," Ahsoka said, once more warning Kanan not to say anything more. Instead he merely nodded.

As the adults wrapped up the arrangements, Luke and Ezra were holding their own conversation. The two didn't bother to shake off the sand from their clothing, but rather opted to track it all over the place.

"Don't go into the kitchen with the sand on you," Luke warned. "Aunt Beru will have a fit if it gets in the food." He looked at Ezra with a warning tone in his eyes.

"Alright," Ezra breathed, still soaking in the detail of the architecture of the place. "Your house is so... white. And rough," he said thoughtfully.

"Really? It's pretty smooth compared to some of the buildings," Luke said. "But... you're from Lothal, you said. That makes sense. I've learned about a couple of Outer Rim planets. Lothal is one of the bigger ones, right?"

Ezra shrugged. "I guess. If this is a regular Outer Rim planet, then definitely. I don't know too much about anything other than home," he said in a somewhat apathetic tone.

"Oh, well. Maybe I'll see it some day," Luke said, sighing. "Well, you want to see my room?"

"Sure," Ezra answered, shrugging again.

"Follow me," Luke declared, practically marching off to his room, his blond hair bouncing a bit with his steps.

Ezra followed quickly behind, leaving behind a trail of scattered sand, glimmering as it fell, powdering the packed dirt floor and instantly blending in.

Back with the adults for a moment, Ahsoka took charge for a time. "Kanan, why don't you find a couple rooms for us," she said in her best Commander voice. She missed those days, but from several missions with Kanan she knew he didn't.

"Yes, Fulcrum," he said in a slightly sarcastic tone, but he obeyed and padded through the adobe-like halls of the Lars home to section 3.

Kanan gone to find the room, the arrangements made, Ahsoka closed her eyes for a moment and sought out Ezra. Surprisingly, she found not one, but two Force presences, both quite bright, though both dampened by pain no person should feel, much less children like Luke and Ezra.

"Hm," she mumbled, and ventured off to find the boys.

She found them in a room that was decorated with makeshift planes, filled only with a rough bed that sat on a ledge made of the self-same adobe-like material the house was made of and a dresser of poorly-made durasteel.

"Hello, Ashla," Luke greeted the young Togrutan.

"Call me Ahsoka," she answered. "Ashla is a cover name."

Luke's eyes widened. "Really? What are you undercover with? Or from, or however that works," he inquired, fully interested.

"Oh, nothing much. I just go by Ashla around those I'm not sure I can trust. You I can definitely trust," Ahsoka said, kneeling to the level of the two boys. You are so strong in the Force, she thought. It reminded her strongly of her old master Anakin. How she missed him. "Your name is Luke Lars?" She queried, pulling herself out of her thoughts.

"No," Luke scoffed with a hint of indignity. "My name's Luke Skywalker. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? I'm their nephew, not their son or anything," he announced with a touch of sadness.

Ahsoka was startled. "Skywalker?" She managed to stagger out of her mouth.

Luke blinked. "Yes. Why?"

It was Ahsoka's turn to blink, and she shook her head to clear out the shock she felt. "It's just... I was taught by a Skywalker once. Skyguy, I called him."

"Hm, that's neat," Luke said. "I got my name from my dad. His name was Anakin. Uncle Owen told me."

Ahsoka tried as hard as she could to keep the shock off her face, and ultimately she succeeded. This would explain the Force presence, the looks... Even the home planet. But with who? Anakin had been passionate, sure, and definitely more emotionally attached than any Jedi should. Perhaps...

Then it hit her. Padme. He was always getting the assignments with Padme and rescuing her from difficult situations. Even the emotion was there from her early days as a padawan. He had been so... emotional. So emotionally attached to her.

It made sense.

This boy was the best of both worlds.

Blue eyes and blond hair of his father, kindness and curiosity and the warmth of his face from his mother.

This boy was the son of Anakin Skywalker.


	7. Never Alone

When the world was the loudest, so was the Force. And yet, when the world was the quietest, the Force was the loudest. All one had to do was concentrate.

That was what Obi-wan Kenobi had discovered after 7 years of living in the desert, visiting his old friend's son every now and then.

The desert life he had pursued had treated him well. He had hardly aged, just graying the slightest around the temples. And, of course, tanning his skin some more.

Now, he was listening. The wind was howling outside, but it had become quieter. The sand had hit the walls of his humble abode, yet the grains came less frequently.

But he wasn't listening to that.

He was listening to the Force.

He was going to visit Luke Skywalker once more, and whoever had appeared at his doorstep.

Obi-wan pulled himself off of his rugged bed and straightened his robes. Even after all the years in the desert, he still valued some semblance of his old Jedi robes and their prior condition.

Even though most of the Jedi had been slain, Obi-wan maintained their chaste lifestyle and still considered himself a Jedi. Despite what he'd gone through with Anakin, he still couldn't fathom being a Jedi and just... stopping. He believed that one would always return to be a Jedi, no matter how long they had run away from it.

Obi-wan breathed. He just breathed. If only for a second, he breathed. In spite of the sand. In spite of the heat. In spite of all the noise. He breathed. And then he called upon the Force to protect him from the waning storm.

Being inside a storm yet not being touched by anything is a very strange sensation. One can hardly feel the breeze that they know surrounds them. Not a drop of water, or, in this case, a grain of sand, touches one's skin. You can scarcely feel the ground under you, yet it remains un-rippled for the time you remain there. As soon as you leave the spot, however, it is violently thrashed about and is at the mercy of the weather entirely.

So it was for Obi-wan as he walked through this sand storm. He knew in the back of his mind that the Jedi lived like this, encased in the Force, hardly registering the storm outside, looking at the ground and ignoring all the galaxy's problems.

Indeed, one who had once been a strong supporter of such a mentality now realized its flaws. Several miles away, he was letting the dark side flow through him in untamed power, melting the sand he walked upon to glass.

He who was once Mace Windu was now Smite Kessel, a name he had chosen for himself to break free of the stony-faced Jedi, a Dark sider who was not a Sith, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy.

He, too, felt this tug of light towards the Lars' home. The beacon of light was screaming to him over the terrible yowling howl of the windy sand storm. And he listened.

Oh, how he listened. This light was young, but the brightest light casts the strongest shadow. He could feel that shadow. Pain of loss and betrayal and hate. Oh, the sheer, yet somehow naive, hate that he felt.

Kessel knew he was virtually invulnerable, but he still held his calculating mind from before his fall.

Oh, his fall. The hatred of his fall. Indeed, the Dark Side gained two of its most fearsome titanic warriors that night.

It had been such a silent night. He had entered that room, duty bound, with Jedi at his side. He left through the Window, alone, hatred building within him at the Jedi who had stolen his title, the Jedi he had never trusted, the Sith Lord that was born that night.

Some day, he should have his revenge. He was powerful, and he relished that power.

Despite his cold mentality prior to his fall, he had always balanced a very slim line and did not dare to fall off to the Dark Side. Yet that very practice was what had kept him alive and what fueled him even on this day.

He could see visions more powerfully than that boy ever could. He could see any divergence. He could see past, present, future, and parallels.

Indeed, he was powerful.

Why, then, approach the light? Because Kessel had learned that when the Force tells you something, you listen. So he listened with eager ears and perhaps an even more eager heart, and continued on his shining path of fresh glass.

The adversity he faced was far more than that of Kenobi. The two techniques they employed were far different, and that made it so that despite being the same distance away from that beacon of light, Kessel would arrive second.

Yet Kessel took no heed of the other light Force presence approaching that same tug. He was supremely focused on that tug himself and had no time nor patience for anything else.

So they both trudged onward towards the same place. As Kessel flexed his robotic arm, Obi-wan motioned back the storm.

And so Kenobi arrived there first.

Owen Lars was not the greatest fan of Kenobi. Never had been. He knew a little of what had happened with his step brother. In his hard-set, stony mind, Kenobi was responsible for his step brother's disappearance. And Kenobi was responsible for the death of his step mother.

But Kenobi had brought Luke to Beru and him, and that made him happy. However, that was shadowed by Kenobi's constant hovering, caring for the boy from affar. Certainly, the crazy old wizard had his uses, but they were few.

Thus it was understandable for Owen to not be the happiest sentient in the Empire when that self-same crazy old wizard appeared at his doorstep just after he had accepted guests already.

"Hello there," Obi-wan said. "I assume I am permitted inside," he said quietly.

As Kenobi had brought Luke, Beru was always very hospitable to him. And Owen did not want to upset Beru. He knew he would if he turned the Jedi, or whatever he was, away.

"Come on in," Owen grumbled. He noted that no sand fell from Kenobi's robes. "Beru, Ben's here. Fix an extra packet, will you?"

"Oh, Ben? Of course!" His wife called back. Sizzling sounds came from the kitchen as his wife released another packet into the pan.

"You have visitors?" Kenobi inquired.

Another of his old tricks. Owen was used to them now. "Yeah. Three sentients. Ship was too far away," Owen answered carefully.

The negotiator nodded. "Very well. I thank you for your hospitality," Kenobi said, and, bowing, left the room, presumably to find the "visitors."

That was just what he proceeded to do. He stretched out to the Force like a shadow to dawn, and he found not one, but three familiar presences, two in the same room and the third in a separate area.

Two first, he decided, and went for the room. It was a room he had been to many times, and he was not always acknowledged when he did. It was Luke's room. He brushed his hand against the wall and, inhaling deeply, proceeded into the room.

What he saw was a most pleasant surprise.

The second familiar presence had been masked, so not many other Force users could know who they were. But eyes don't deceive, except perhaps in the case of a shape-shifting bounty hunter.

"Ahsoka," he whispered, looking in shock at the Togrutan who sat on the floor.

She turned around, not sure if she had truly heard what she had thought she had heard. Seeing him, even merely glimpsing him, made her spring to her feet and embrace the man. "Obi-wan!" She cried.

Laughing rose up between the two, leaving the boys in the room slightly embarassed.

"Ew! I hope they're not kissy!" Ezra exclaimed.

"Nah, Ahsoka's too young. They feel like they're old friends," Luke countered, unconsciously using the Force.

"Look how you've grown," Kenobi said. "You're certainly not 17 anymore!"

"No, Master Kenobi," Ahsoka said. "24." They laughed a bit more at this. It was a rather emotional night for Ahsoka. "Look how you've grayed!" She exclaimed in a teasing tone.

"I'm not that gray! Just a bit around the temples," he said in mock defence.

"No, not that gray," she 'admitted.' "Oh! I just realized something. About Anakin."

"What do you believe you've discovered?" Obi-wan asked, expecting the answer to be not quite what the big thing to discover here was.

He almost laughed at himself in his head at that though, as if anything were to be discovered on a big, obscure ball of dust floating around in the place that seemed farthest from the Galactic Core.

She lowered her voice. "I believe that Anakin had a son," she said in a conspiratorial whisper. Emotional highs do not ever make serious discussions better in any way, shape, or form.

Obi-wan wasn't expecting that she would piece that together. "And what led you to that conclusion?" He asked.

"Luke is strong with the Force. His last name is Skywalker. He looks like Anakin. What conclusion am I supposed to draw?" She asked. No, emotional highs were definitely not good for serious conversations.

"That one," Obi-wan said. "Let's get away from the boys to discuss this more calmly.

The two's eyes followed the Force-users as they left the room.

"What did I say?" Ezra said.

"I still don't think it is what you think it is. You watch too many holomovies," Luke answered.

"Yeah... I used to..." Ezra said sadly, quietly, remembering life before the Empire took his parents.

"Sorry," Luke said in a halting tone.

Ahsoka and Obi-wan went to a room near Luke's, but not in hearing distance. Obi-wan cleared his dust-aged throat.

"This story starts right after you left the Jedi Order," he said, pausing for dramatic effect. So far, this was fairly anti-climactic, which is why it is not the climax of this story.

"Most good stories do," Ahsoka said, trying in vain to squash the rising of sarcastic, witty, somewhat emotional comments that kept bubbling to the top of her mind.

"Anakin had twins with Senator Amidala. At birth, the two were separated. Luke was taken here to live with his step-uncle and his wife, while his sister, Leia, was taken to Alderaan, where she is raised by the ruling house, the Organas. Padme remains there, helping to raise her daughter," Obi-wan said, leaving out the painful memories of Anakin turning to the Dark Side.

"I thought Senator Amidala was dead," Ahsoka said. Obi-wan shook his head.

"Yoda and I prepared a staged death so the Empire would not seek her or her children. The precautions one must take are almost terrifying," he said gravely.

Ahsoka raised her eyebrow, her face-marking curving elegantly on her bronze-colored face. "That's some precaution," she said.

Obi-wan nodded. "The Empire is more evil than you could know, Ahsoka," he said.

"I kind of got that impression. I'm part of a Rebellion, and I'm on a mission with another ex-Jedi and his friend who has a ship. We're chasing Mace Windu, because he turned to the Dark Side. We could use your help, if you're not doing anything else," Ahsoka said in a slightly sarcastic, almost deadpan tone.

Obi-wan stroked his beard in mock contemplation. "I think the next sand-counting session I have is on Tuesday, but I'm sure I can reschedule," he said, looking up at the Togrutan.

"Perfect," Ahsoka said. "We've got one Force-sensitive kid, but what about Luke?"

"I'm sure we can figure out somethi--" Obi-wan said, then looked up sharply, but not at anything that could be seen. "Did you feel that?" He asked quietly.

She nodded. They were not the only ones who had felt it. Kanan felt it as well, just returning from finding some rooms in section 3.

"Kessel," She whispered.


	8. Dancing in the Sandstorm

Kessel's glass path was beginning to have more light on it. The storm was clearing up, but it was still somewhat of a hazard for any non-Force-user. The Lars' home was right in front of him. His path stretched behind him. And he was close to that tug in the Force.

Krschoormmmmmm.

His red lightsaber ignighted in his hand, glowing a murderous blood color. Then the other side ignited in an homage to the Sith lord once dueled by a Jedi Kessel considered to be somewhat of a rival. The only difference was that this half was purple, like his old lightsaber had been. Indeed, it was the self-same kyber crystal in that end of the hilt.

The red and purple reminded Kessel who he was, for he was no Sith.

He twirled the saber-staff, not caring about the extra melting of glass. What he did care about was two figures, emerging from the pit that was called a home. What simpletons that lived there! What common swine!

The two figures were then joined by a third.

Two blue lightsabers and two white ones were ignited. The third figure held the two white sabers, a Togrutan if his eyes did not deceive him, and she remained at the edge of the pit.

The two lightsabers belonged to the first two figures who were now approaching.

Another twirl on Kessel's part, and he approached the two Jedi.

One he didn't recognize. The other created a pleasant irony in that moment, a twisting of fates. Almost like a shatterpoint, Kessel thought.

The master of Soresu was coming towards him, behind the younger Jedi.

And then that younger Jedi attacked in a sloppy form I assault that Kessel easily brushed off with quick, violent, almost flowing strokes. A web of purple and red surrounded him like an elegant breeze that caused dark shadows of clouds to appear. Such was the darkness in each of his strokes.

There was room now to temporarily, at least, remove this younger Jedi from the scene. The boy was of no challenge to him, but his old rival, The Master of Soresu, would almost certainly be one.

Kessel did a figure-eight sort of movement with his saber-staff, an offensive move full of force. The blue blade parried each stroke of red and purple.

Grains of sand melted between the two blades, causing dribbles of glass to fall and melt into puddles on the sandy ground. The wind still blew, despite the fact that it was weakening, and flecks of sand were hitting the two on all sides. Drops of liquid glass singed their skin, but they were far to focused to notice it.

The saber-staff was a part of Kessel, light and strong, moving as one with him. Over the years, the Dark Sider and the saber staff had bonded. Each motion was an extension of Kessel's body and the previous maneuver.

Obi-wan furiously blocked each aggressive attack that Kessel threw at him, remaining balance, letting the Force flow through him.

He felt slightly saddened at fighting a man who he once considered to be his friend, but he felt hope for him. One who started as a Jedi couldn't just stop, Obi-wan thought to himself.

Obi-wan soon found himself parrying forward, then backward again, and finally at a standstill of looping blurs of light.

Then Kessel broke suit and Force-sprinted to the family home, attacking Ahsoka furiously. She blocked him skillfully with her two blades, inserting flips, jabs, and small Force pushes along the way.

And then she made a falter. She flipped behind Kessel, allowing him to jump into the Lars' home.

Once again, he Force sprinted, this time through the house.

The food Beru was cooking sizzled so loudly she could hardly hear the humming of Kessel's saberstaff, and Owen was in a storage unit in section 4.

The beacon of light was near, so near, almost tangible. He rounded the corner and saw two young boys.

The two scrambled onto a rough bed in the corner, and Windu was about to approach when the two white lightsabers barred his path once again.

A tight hallway was no place to have a lightsaber duel, but somehow Force sensitives could use any situation to their advantage.

Ahsoka's Ataru flips were far more restricted than she may have like, but her Force elements and martial art skills still served her.

Likewise, Kessel's Vaapad approach was severely dampened in the hallway of adobe-like material.

Ahsoka began driving the battle towards the outside, using kicks to herd the Dark Sider along.

Obi-wan waited outside, holding his blue lightsaber at the ready.

The food sizzled on.

They were back in a more open playing field, two against one. Flips and kicks returned to Ahsoka's use as she utilized her personal style, holding the lightsabers in her signature reverse grip.

Kessel Force-jumped out of the hole, dust pluming from his feet as he landed. The full intensity of the storm was unleashed upon him once more.

"I'm going up there!" Obi-wan cried.

Obi-wan scaled the stairs with ease thanks to the Force and attacked his opponent with series after series of parries.

He felt Kessel's Force shields slump in the vigor of battle. This was a prime time to Force push him away, which he did.

He raised his hand, concentrating, batting away each powerful dark-ridden stroke, and pushed.

Grains of sand hit him at full strength on his out-stretched hand. The Jedi Master strode over to Kessel and with surgical precision sliced a tendon in his leg.

The Dark-Sider screamed and threw sand at him with the Force, pebbles and rocks hitting Obi-wan in the face as he was pushed away.

Kessel did the best he could to scramble back to his glass path as the allies of Kenobi came after him. He used the Force to push himself along the smooth path to his ship.

He muttered to himself as he left. He hadn't even used his fully powerful skills in the duel, but he supposed he could have looked at possible outcomes and seen this.

Two men down on the field, lying near each other. That was all Ahsoka could see. She ran, propelling herself into a Force sprint, and arrived by their sides in mere seconds.

"Master Obi-wan? Kanan?" She said, kneeling by Kanan first since he was the one closer to consciousness, mostly speaking for her own satisfaction at the moment.

Kanan groaned. "Ugh... I hate being Force-pushed," he said, sitting up. "Where's Kessel-- and that other Jedi I was fighting alongside?" He asked abruptly.

"Kessel got away... again. But Obi-wan is right here. He got socked by a bunch of sand," Ahsoka said, laughing weakly.

She offered her arm to help him up. As soon as he was standing, or wobbling, as it was, she went over to Obi-wan and lifted the sand from his face and chest just as he began moaning.

"Master Obi-wan?" She asked gently, slipping her arm behind his back to assist him.

"Now I know why Anakin hates sand," Obi-wan muttered, still wincing from pain, the wind knocked out of him.

Ahsoka laughed a bit more strongly than last time. The sass master was back. "Can you stand?" She asked.

Obi-wan nodded, eyes closed. He drew on the Force, recalling what few healing techniques he knew, then sat up. It was a bit more quickly than it would have been otherwise, and so it was the same way when he stood with the help of Ahsoka.

He took a deep breath. Obi-wan breathed. He just breathed. In spite of the pain, in spite of the sand, in spite of the mission to come, he just breathed. And then he called on the Force to support him on his return to the Lars' homestead, where Owen was anxiously examining scorch marks on the walls.

By the time the three reached the Lars' home once more, Obi-wan and Kanan were walking normally, hardly feeling any pain, releasing it to the Force as they went. The stairs were a trivial obstacle, overcome with ease.

The sizzling of food had stopped, steaming plates were placed in what seemed like a heaping mound on the two tables, one makeshift for all the guests.

Beru was nowhere to be seen. Obi-wan could feel the fear of Luke. Kanan could feel the fear of Ezra. It was almost as if they had master-padawan bonds.

Ahsoka swiftly located Owen and Beru with the Force, finding them standing in the hallway outside Luke's room.

Owen was a simple man, rough and hearty, but a Jedi was far out of his league. To almost everyone on Tatooine, they were legendary material far before the Empire had risen and set the sun of the Republic-- that sun that had never reached Tatooine, seemingly displaced by their own two suns, Tatoo 1 and Tatoo 2.

This combination of simpleness, heartiness, and superstition that he had made a few lightsaber scores more than enough to frighten him fully.

He didn't care who had put them there. He knew they were outside of Luke's bedroom, which most likely meant that the scores had something to do with him.

It took scarcely any urging on Beru's part to convince him that Luke needed to leave with anyone who wouldn't make him a slave.

Luke and Ezra were both sitting in the former's room, still processing the battle they had witnessed, their minds coming up with as many ideas as possible. They were scared, but they weren't showing it. Not externally, at least.

Owen had stopped shaking by the time the three Force-users had arrived.

"It's alright, Owen," Ahsoka said calmly, sensing the fear he was holding tightly and trying to mentally squash.

He nodded, not even registering that she couldn't see, but rather could feel, his fear. He still wasn't convinced that he should let Luke go with the Jedi and become a fool, but other than Obi-wan, they seemed different enough to warrant consideration.

Kanan's comm began vibrating. "It's Hera," he said quietly to Ahsoka. "Excuse me."

His two colleagues nodded in affirmation.

Ahsoka went into Luke's room to gather the two boys while Obi-wan mind-tricked Owen and Beru into letting Luke come with them-- not that that was much of a problem, but Obi-wan believed that one should always be safe rather than sorry.

"We're good to go," Obi-wan said. His Coruscanti accent had not diminished in his 7 years on Tatooine.

"Yes, master. Come on, Luke, Ezra," Ahsoka said as she ushered them out of the room. They were strangely silent. The brief sliver of the battle that they had seen had settled into them, but despite that, she knew that they would be back to their chatty selves in an hour or two.

They met Kanan at the front arch. "Hera was just asking how the mission was going. I told her we were about ready to leave," he informed them.

"That's correct. And we have another passenger, as well," Obi-wan said, giving a nod.

"Alright then," Kanan said, pressing his comm again, changing the channel. "Chopper?"

Static came through the speakers.

"Chopper, are you alright?" He asked, not letting any of the nervousness he was beginning to feel to seep out into his words.

This time he was rewarded by some botched beeping that came through rather quietly, but at least constantly.

"Could you get a signal started?" Kanan asked, now a bit relieved, but still not letting any emotion show.

He was answered by a complaining whine from the Astromech droid on the other end.

"Yes, I really do need you to. Or did you forget there was sand storm?" Kanan asked in a sightly chastising tone.

He received the answer along the lines of, "No. Why else would I be sending a staticky answer?" Ah, Chopper. Always the first to complain. Maybe one day that would change, but as far as Kanan knew, today was not that day.

"I don't know, maybe you're doing it on purpose to get out of work," Kanan said, one eyebrow raised, allowing the fresh light to light up his sea-like eyes.

Chopper interjected a annoyed, negative answer, which Kanan ignored. Half the things that came out of that droid had no bearing on anything but being comic relief. Admittedly, that was needed now and then. This was one of those times.

Obi-wan did appreciate the comic relief, and he anticipated the escape of this Force-forsaken ball of sand.

"Can you see anything, or are you covered in sand?" He asked, going on as if Chopper hadn't said anything. (Which, really, he didn't, but communication is communication.)

Another series of beeps came through, a bit stronger than they had been.

Ahsoka pulled out her tracker, which now displayed Chopper's relatively weak signal and also showed that Kessel's ship had left the system.

"Alright, let's get out of here," Kanan said.

The suns setting and the sky now boasting a glorious blue, the 5 trekked out into the freshly-settled sand, their shadows cast out behind them like long, black brushstrokes.


	9. They Call Them "Feels"

The sky was darkening, and new landscapes had cropped up everywhere. Luke had never been allowed outside at this time, and he knew that back at his home-- no, his old home-- the power had been shut down for the night.

He never thought that Tatooine could be so cold, not even at night. The glass that he occasionally slipped onto was just as cold, if not colder, than he was.

He wasn't sure why they were following the glass, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He had witnessed some very strange things today, but he was sure with how tired he was he would be asleep in no time.

Apparently there was supposed to be a ship somewhere around here, and something told Luke that there was, but he didn't fully trust that instinct.

Ezra was trudging on next to him, his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground. Luke had learned to leave his hands out of his pockets no matter how cold he was, just in case he slipped again.

He'd lost a fight with a droid before, and that had smashed his nose. He didn't want to have that happen again.

"Are we almost there?" Ezra said for the third time. Well, more mumbled, really. Everyone felt a tiny bit melancholy. Or maybe it was just exhaustion. Luke couldn't tell.

He was prepared for an over-complicated answer, but unfortunately, there came only the dumbed down answer of "no."

What did adults take him for? Some dumb little farm kid? There, his sleep was talking again. Luke sighed, a plume of breath coming out of his breath and sparkling up to the still purple-tinted sky. Some stars could be seen, but Luke was too busy staring at the ground and observing the sand grains carefully.

"My datapad says that the Phantom should be around here somewhere," Ahsoka said to Kanan and Obi-wan, "but I can't see exactly whe-- my leg!" She cried.

A robotic arm, belonging to Chopper, had grabbed her leg.

"Well, I guess that's one way to find a ship," Kanan said, laughing.

"Unfortunately, that may mean that we have to do a good deal of digging before the Ghost picks us up," Obi-wan said, with a hint of humor underlying in his voice.

"Maybe not as much as you may think, Master," Kanan said, still unused to the formal title that he had dropped for so long. "Hera and the Ghost have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. We've got a magnetic cargo area thing that I'm not entirely sure what to call."

"We'll still have to clear a good deal of this sand out of the way, though," Ahsoka pointed out.

"Not a problem, if you'll help me," Kanan said boldly. Ahsoka's eyes glistened with understanding; Obi-wan was already stretching out his hand.

Luke looked up at the same time as Ezra, not wanting to miss this awe-striking display of powers.

The three Force users closed their eyes and motioned up with their hands, then pushed away.

The sand rose in a large glob, looking like an upside-down rain drop, or some oddly shaped glass ball that held a planet inside of it.

In amazement, the two 7-year-olds watched, gazing in awe as the sand moved and then deposited itself several feet away.

Immediately, the complaints from Chopper started coming, blaming Ahsoka for getting herself caught and all-out mad that they took so terribly long. Indeed, he announced that he was entitled to an oil bath.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say entitled, Chopper," Ahsoka said, helping him out of the astromech droid socket in the top of the Phantom.

Kanan stood back, a bit out of breath from the ambitious use of the Force. He hadn't drawn on the Force that much in years, but he had to admit, it felt good to be back.

He took a breath, then changed the channel on his comm to Hera.

"Specter 2," he said as the the sweet breath of his favorite person in the whole galaxy flickered into audibility. "We're ready for the pickup. We may need to break out our vacuum cleaning mechanism before using the Phantom again."

"What did you do?" Hera asked in a chastising tone.

"It wasn't us, I promise. It was that blasted sand storm," Kanan half-protested in a slightly joking tone.

"Hm. If you so much as scratched one line in my paint--" Hera warned. She wasn't joking that much, if at all, this time.

"I'm sure we can find a cheap painter," Kanan said. He could almost hear Hera raise one of her eyebrows.

"You better," Hera said. "I'll be down there in about a minute or two. Behave yourself, Specter 1. Specter 2 out."

True to her word, the modified Corellian VCX-100 light freighter arrived just minutes later.

The moving of the Phantom, however, proved to be a bit more of a challenge.

"I can't fit that thing into my cargo hold!" Hera exclaimed when Kanan explained the plan. They were in the cockpit while the rest of the group was in the back, either warming up or taking care of Chopper's sand problem.

"All you need to do is lift it so it's not under the sand," he said.

"And you and Ahsoka can't manage to do that?" Hera said, one eyebrow raised.

Kanan mirrored her face as best as he could.

"Fine, I'll lift it out of the sand," Hera said, turning her chair to face the controls.

Kanan smirked and went to the cargo bay to watch the spectacle.

The small shuttle moved painfully slowly, sand shifting around it and filling in the small lines made around it.

It took a good ten minutes for the Phantom to finally be released from its sandy prison, and it did indeed have plenty of scratches in its paint.

Kanan severely hoped he would avoid a yelling-out by Hera. Maybe he could get her to avoid looking at the Phantom.

Once the magnetic holder eased the small fighter shuttle back to the sandy ground, Kanan hopped out of the back of the Ghost and piloted the sandy ship into its pocket atop its mother ship.

Kanan reentered the main portion of the Ghost and went to the lounge area, where the group other than Hera were sitting.

Luke and Ezra both had blankets around them that had fallen halfway down their back, bunched up in fleecy navy blue folds. Ahsoka sat near them in the curving bench seat while Obi-wan was fingering his lightsaber. It had been too long since it had seen action.

"Ahsoka," Kanan said, coming away from the slightly darkened doorway. "The Phantom is in and we're ready to jump. You have the tracking path?"

"From what I've seen, it looks like he might be heading to Alderaan, which is a lucky break for us," Ahsoka explained.

"Why's that?" Kanan inquired.

"Oh, Hera hasn't told you? Well... best to wait until we get there," Ahsoka said, slightly embarassed she had mentioned it now.

Kanan just raised an eyebrow and decided that the secrcy was for the best. "Alright then," he conceded. "You already let Hera know where we need to go?"

Ahsoka nodded, her montrals and the tips of her lekku bobbing with the motion. "Yup," she said, turning her face away from the main light source of the room, which now merely lit up her somewhat sharp jawline.

"So off to Alderaan it is then," Kanan said, his thoughts drifting off to what challenges may await them there.

Moments later, the hyperdrive hummed in cosmic harmony and the stars swirled into the mellow blue and white of hyperspace.

For Obi-wan, this was a trip filled with memory. The last time he had been off-world had actually been on Alderaan, and his mind, however sassy and sarcastic it could be, found the whole thing rather poetic. Who knows, maybe the next stop after that would be to Polis Massa?

He remembered that fateful duel that had come just before that particular trip. It had been on the beautiful world of Raxus; a place with the grace, charm, and natural atmosphere like Raxus scarcely deserved to be the home of such a grievous battle.

He had come with Padme, who was going there to find her husband. They had found him in the fields outside the capital. He didn't know much of what had happened other than what he had heard.

He did know that when he appeared at the door of the ship, Anakin had Force-choked Padme and she had fallen to the ground, landing softly in the lush grass that cushioned her fall.

And that battle... that chilling, awful battle in such a beautiful place. It had ended near a cold stream by the side of a cultivated field full of some sort of wheat.

The stream had been full of shipping crates that the two had dueled between. Anakin, no, Vader, so sure of his dark powers had tried to jump over him, slicing a primitive power line that the planet had used and allowing it to drop into the crystal stream.

Obi-wan's brother had all but died that day. Not physically, but mentally, though rolling down to a stream that gives you an electric shock can be fairly close.

He knew what had happened next. Vader was the face of the Empire. No one deserved that. Not even someone who had allowed their minds to be corrupted by the Dark Side and who had gone insane.

He felt tears grow in his eyes, and he brushed them away with hands that had become more rough in recent years. Nostalgia was a powerful thing that he hadn't dared to allow himself experience in a long time. A long time.

Although he thought he had made his tears invisible, everyone in the room, Force-sensitive as they were, noticed them. Those who knew how sent warming bursts into the Force, and that made Obi-wan smile.

The hours passed slowly for Chopper, who was the only one who stayed awake. All the others had gone to sleep already in the several beds of the ship.

Their dreams were not all pleasant, particularly for Luke and Obi-wan, but part of that may be the lack of warmth they found as they adjusted from the heat of Tatooine to the cold air of space.

Obi-wan was quite out of practice with his old skill of adaptability. Of course, he always liked to have a plan, but adaptability, he had found, was sometimes just as important, particularly if you forgot to pack a plan B with your rations and bedroll.

Luke dreamt of the flashing of lightsabers outside his bedroom, and he hugged his blankets tight until he woke up in the middle of the night.

The perfect darkness of that man with the long lightsaber had chilled the young boy's heart with fear, a natural emotion that he found plenty of times in the late nights at the Lars' farm. Not all would agree with his acceptance of fear, but others knew that it was necessary and helpful.

He woke up with a small cry. He and Ezra were in the bunk of one room, but the boy above him was too busy with his old troubled dream to notice it.

Ahsoka, however, in the next room over, did.

The door slid open with a hiss, and Luke gave a start. "Luke?" She said quietly.

"Oh, it's you, Ahsoka," Luke said in an equally quiet voice.

"Bad dream?" The Force-user asked.

Luke nodded.

"Want to talk about it?" She asked gently as she approached the bed.

"It was the man with the long lightsaber," Luke admitted. He hated exposing his mind and his thoughts so much, but it's easier when you're young and it's dark all around you. "He hurt my Aunt and Uncle."

"He didn't really," Ahsoka said. She sat down beside him, her lekku brushing the bottom of the bunk above it.

"He did though. In my dream it was real, but I... I know... I know that in real life, he hurt them. By scaring them. By scaring them into letting me go. They really did love me, you know," he said, sure of himself but still shadowed by fear of that dark man.

Even for a Force sensitive, Ahsoka found this amount of empathy astonishing, to say the least. "Yes, that hurts, sometimes," she said, putting her arm around Luke's shoulder.

Luke didn't particularly care for physical touch, but tonight, with the cold and his dreams, he welcomed it for once.

Ahsoka smiled. "Are you going to be okay?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah, but you might want to stay. I'm not the only one having bad dreams tonight," He said, implying that Ezra would soon wake up as well.

"Alright," Ahsoka said. Luke was right. A few moments later, Ezra woke up.

"Luke, do you mind if Ezra comes to my room so he doesn't feel like you're listening?" She asked in the most polite way she could think of. He nodded understandingly and she pulled his blankets over him once more.

"Ezra?" Ahsoka said, standing on a rung next to the bed to allow her 5'7" actual height to boost her so she was on eye level with the Loth boy.

He sniffed, grabbed a blanket, and clambered over. Ahsoka dismounted the side ladder to allow him a clear path to the floor-- with a bit of her help, of course.

"I heard you," he said in a shaky voice. He still wore his rumpled outfit from earlier, though there didn't seem to be be much of a choice in that matter.

She took him by the hand and they went through the door into the hall, then through the door into the next room over. The two doors opened and closed with unsteady hisses.

She went over to her bed and patted the blankets next to her, urging Ezra to sit as well. Being a 7-year-old, he climbed to the back of the mattress and leaned against the wall.

Ahsoka followed suit for familiarity's sake.

Ezra reminded her a lot of herself, particularly in the days after she left the Jedi Order.

She took a deep breath. "Well?" She asked gently. She certainly hadn't seen herself being a counselor to two 7-year-olds.

"You want me to tell you about my dream," Ezra said. Ahsoka nodded in return, her montrals swishing the tiniest bit and her lekku lightly rubbing the bottom of the empty bunk above.

"My parents," he said, as if that would explain everything. He put his chin on his knees and pulled his blanket around him closer.

She nodded again to urge him on.

"They were taken by the Empire, just a few days ago," he said, taking her hint.

"I'm sorry," Ahsoka said as gently as she could.

"That's what everyone says," Ezra huffed, a bit frustrated, but truly appreciating the sentiment. "I... I wish people would stop be sorry and start doing something about it."

"Oh, Ezra. You should see Alderaan. There are so many people doing things about it. It's slow, it's small, but it is growing," Ahsoka said reassuringly.

"I guess it make sense, but I don't really think it is actually happening," Ezra said in a small, depressed voice.

There was silence for a few moments.

Ahsoka certainly felt bad for the boy. His parents... Oh! His parents! In those few moments of quietude, he realized that he was the son of the Bridgers.

"You know, your parents were brave helpers of the Rebellion," Ahsoka said.

"I thought that was something they made up, or just the way they stayed home," Ezra said. He himself was having his own moment of insight.

"No, they were a very real light of hope," Ahsoka said. "We looked up to them for their bravery. While we worked in the shadows, they broadcast our message to the galaxy."

"They taught me what they thought," Ezra said. He raised his face, his chin no longer digging into his knees. "Maybe sometime I could be like them." The light had returned to his eyes, if only a little, and Ahsoka smiled.

She gave him a quick hug. "Maybe sometime soon, Ezra," she said encouragingly. Ezra nodded, then yawned.

"I think I can go back to sleep now," he said, looking at him with sleepy but happy blue eyes.

"Alright then, let's get you back into bed," Ahsoka said.

"Can you carry me?" Ezra asked.

"I suppose," Ahsoka said. She wasn't amazingly strong physically, but the Force did help her as she carried Ezra back to his bunk.

Within seconds, Ezra joined Luke in the land of slumber.


	10. The Soul of the Galaxy

It was during the morning of the simulated sleep cycle that they arrived at Alderaan. The planet hung in bejeweled beauty among the twinkling gems of the nearby stars.

The soul of the Galaxy was here before them.

Hera had gotten up early, anxious to be with her "baby," which was, of course, the ship itself. Chopper was glad for the company despite his protests against the extra work Hera gave him.

Kanan had woken up next, then Ahsoka, Obi-wan, and the two boys.

Obi-wan and Ahsoka were assisting the boys with breakfast, but Kanan and Hera were loyally at their steads in the cockpit, the datapad with the tracking information near at hand.

"So this is Alderaan," Hera said, despite the fact that she had been there a couple times before.

"Finally, out of hyperspace," Kanan said, stretching. "You want me to go tell Ahsoka?"

Hera replied with a nod, skillfully piloting the light freighter nearer to the atmosphere at just the right angle for a smooth entry to the planet's lower atmosphere.

Kanan stood up, stretched some more, and tromped his way to the lounge area, his boots clonking on the metal floor.

"Ahsoka," he said as the doors parted before him with a hiss.

Her montral and lekku-framed face turned towards him. "Yes?" She replied.

"We're out of hyperspace," Kanan said, looking hungrily at the food before him. He shook himself out of it quickly without even glancing, reminding himself that the food was far better an Alderaan.

"Good," Ahsoka said. "You need me up in the cockpit, or should I stay down here?"

"I'm not sure. I failed to ask," Kanan said with a mental laugh at his second sentence. So formal. How had he become so formal? Not even as a Jedi had he spoken like that-- No, he reminded himself, he was still a Jedi.

"Fair enough," Ahsoka answered. "I think I'll head up there in a few minutes, Kanan."

"Alright," he said, and returned to the cockpit. He was in the hallway when the ship shook. "Oh, no," he muttered. This couldn't be anything good.

He pushed himself off the wall and dashed in as much of a straight line as he could manage to the cockpit.

"We're under attack," Hera said in a surprisingly calm tone of voice.

"I can see that," Kanan answered. He rushed to the nose guns, focused on his comm for the moment. He switched the channel to Ahsoka. "Fulcrum, get yourself to the top guns and the Negotiator to the bottom ones," He cried in a tone that verged on yelling.

"Roger that, Specter One," Ahsoka said.

Kanan swung into the seat and immediately started firing at what he recognized as none other than the infamous fighter of Smite Kessel.

"Kriff," he muttered, punching the 'fire' button whenever the ship was even anywhere near the target zone. Soon he was joined by two other guns.

"Deflector shields are failing," Hera said through comm in a less calm voice than she had maintained previously.

"Got it," Kanan said in a raised tone. The ship shook; the left wing-like area had been scratched.

The three Force-users continued shooting at the ship and at last they nicked its wing.

"That was a close one," Ahsoka said as they streamed into the cockpit. Even Ezra and Luke had found their way around.

"Was that a real space battle?" Luke asked quietly, trying not to show too much enthusiasm.

"That was totally wizard!" Ezra cried. His excitement filled and even flooded and overflowed from his face.

"Yes, that was a space battle. While exhilarating, they are dangerous," Ahsoka addressed the two 7-year-olds.

"Technically it was an atmosphere battle," Hera chimed in.

"Space battle," Ahsoka said firmly, a small smirk on her face. "I've got to contact our... well, contact, so why don't you two go with Kanan back to the lounge?"

"Why me?" the Jedi protested as quietly as he could manage.

"Because you haven't had as much time with them," Ahsoka reasoned.

"But why not Hera? She's barely met the kids," Kanan countered, being tempted to attempt out-reasoning Ahsoka.

"Because I make sure we don't crash," Hera answered, not even looking back.

Kanan's shoulders slumped a small increment in resignation. "Very well," he conceded.

The three clomped out of the cockpit, Ezra snickering and Luke mentally doing so.

"What do you want me to do, oh great and powerful Ahsoka?" Obi-wan asked. It felt good to use sarcasm and sass again.

"Hm," Ahsoka considered in a very exaggerated manner. "Why don't you take care of the dishes from breakfast?" She answered with a smirk.

Obi-wan raised an eyebrow. "Very well," he answered; he knew that being a Jedi meant that he would have to do things he didn't necessarily want to do. His master Qui-Gon had taught him that.

Only Ahsoka and Hera remained in the cockpit.

"Mind if I use your communicator?" Ahsoka asked.

"Go ahead, I don't mind," Hera said without removing her eyes from their forward position.

Ahsoka dipped her head in thanks and set up the comm. She inputted this code and that, adjusting the frequency with as fine a finger as she could, adding a voice modulator for safety.

At last, the audio connection formed. "Candle Two, this is Fulcrum," she said confidently.

"Fulcrum, go ahead," Candle Two answered. In truth, he was Senator and Viceroy Bail Organa.

"I am with the Specters from the Lothal cell and 3 trust-worthy guests. Request permission to land," she said, speaking calmly.

"Please send through verification, Fulcrum," Bail answered.

"Inputting codes," Ahsoka said as she fed several chains of numbers and key words into the communicator.

"Access granted. Go to Willow 13 in the Prime Diamond. I will meet you there. Candle Two out."

Static was all that was heard for the brief moment as Ahsoka turned off the comm.

"Go to Hangar 3 in the palace, Hera," Ahsoka said.

"You got it," the Twi'lek pilot answered.

The Ghost flew smoothly despite its earlier hit, and several minutes later they landed in a beautiful blue and white themed hangar that held an abundance of pieces of art and plant life.

The seven of them, including Chopper, exited the Ghost, glad to be on solid ground again.

"Senator Organa, it's good to see you again," Ahsoka said, shaking his hand and dipping her head in respect.

"It is a pleasure to see you once more as well, Ahsoka. And who is this I see? It can not be Jedi Master Kenobi!" Bail exclaimed in his faintly tropical-like accent.

"It is indeed, old friend," Obi-wan greeted the senator, his strong Coruscanti accent contrasting strongly with the senator's much different one.

"How long has it been? Seven years? It can not be. It has been far too long, my friends. And who are these young ones?"

"Anakin Skywalker and Candle 1's son, Luke, and this is the Firebirds' son, Ezra," Obi-wan answered, glad to be among friends, yet somehow up-to-date on rebel codes.

"Ah, yes. How big they both are! Candle 1 will be most pleased to see young Luke," Senator Organa answered. "Come. Surely, you must be hungry. I have had a large brunch prepared for us. Come, come," he ushered them.

The halls were long and crystalline, very sleek and spotless, boasting even more examples of the beautiful artwork and flora of Alderaan. The flowers were in all different colors and shapes, and the artwork followed suit.

The two boys marveled at these sights; Obi-wan was glad to be somewhere with shade and noted with shame all the sand he was dropping. Ahsoka and Hera did not seem affected by the Alderaanian finery, but Kanan was still a bit awestruck by the royalty of the place. Chopper stole a flower to give to Princess Leia, who was his favorite part of visits to Alderaan.

After a small maze of hallways, they were stunned by the vastness of the dining area: platters upon platters of breakfast food were piled high on the table; most of the walls were open-air, broken only by sleek, curving pillars; the decor was even more stunning than that in the hallways.

Luke and Ezra's mouths watered. The rations they had 'eaten' were worse than cardboard and simply didn't cut it for their appetite.

Kanan, too gazed on the display with hungry eyes, not even taking in the fact that three women and two small girls were already seated at the table. It made for an odd spectacle, that's for certain.

Hera stifled a giggle at Kanan when she noticed him, and she, Ahsoka, and Obi-wan proceeded to the table quietly with practiced civility.

Luke, though still stunned at the amount of food at the table, slowly felt a feeling dawn on his heart, a small tug and a breath of familiarity. He wasn't sure what to make of it when he absently encountered the feeling, particularly since half of his attention was still strongly fixated on the food.

Luke's focus returning, he and Ezra followed the three more refined people, still staring big-eyed at the food. Kanan was able to move himself a few moments later. Just because he trained as a Jedi didn't mean he had perfect manners.

Bail seated himself at the head of the massive table and pressed a button under the table to call in the servants.

Almost instantly, 10 maids came in and, as if it were choreographed, gracefully served heaping portions of food to each person's plate in near silence.

Fruit, pastries, and local delicacies were arranged into a precarious yet beautiful (and most certainly delicious) mountain of edibility. Even Hera seemed slightly surprised at this dance of food. Obi-wan and Ahsoka watched quietly as if remembering similar accommodations from some day a lifetime ago. Kanan would have as well, if he hadn't been so focused on how good it would taste.

The newcomers' reactions to this whimsical performance lingered for several moments after the maids had disappeared as gracefully and quickly as they had come.

Those used to such displays waited with pristine manners for the gawkers, with the exception of the brown-haired girl who carefully attempted to steal-- was it really stealing? That was debatable-- a piece of bright orange fruit from her plate. One of the women, with straight brown hair and pale skin like the girl's shot her a quick glance, nearly imperceptible to all but the young charge.

Soon, and almost all at once, the eating commenced. Kanan seemed to have recovered his cool demeanor and ate with as much dignity as he could manage to pull together. Anyone perceptive enough may have noticed that the white-haired girl had a similar manner.

Somehow, through the mouthfuls of flavor, the adults managed to hold a conversation. Senator Organa began. "Jarrus, Captain Syndulla, Master Kenobi, Tano. May I introduce the key nucleus of the Rebellion, minus Captain Antilles and Mon Mothma." The word Rebellion earned a subdued gasp from Ezra and Luke, which in turn garnered smirks from the girls. "My wife, Candle 3, also known as Breha Organa. Our weapons training master, Candle 4, also known as Sabé. And, most importantly, our leader, Padme Amidala."

Ahsoka felt emotion rise within her. She still wasn't used to thinking of her good friend as alive. Those who had arrived on the Ghost had no idea of the importance of that name.

Padmé apparently noticed Ahsoka's face and excitement; she smiled at her friend. "It's good to see you, Ahsoka."

"You too," she said warmly.

Obi-wan, taking an almost reluctant bite of food, swallowed carefully and looked up, clearing his throat. "I believe there is another matter of importance that must be voiced." He put down his fork. Ahsoka peered at him carefully, silently questioning what he would say. "Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa are twins-- the children of Padme Amidala," his eyes flicked around the table, "And the Hero With No Fear."


End file.
